Catherine Video Game Review
by Caiters 4.19.12
I FINALLY BEAT CATHERINE
I was really pleased with the whole game overall, which might be sort of surprising if you know me.
I am pretty much of the opinion that cheating on your significant other is absolutely unforgivable and there is never an excuse for it. So when I learned that the entire plot of this game centers around you (the male main character) cheating on your longtime girlfriend… I wasn’t really sure this was the game for me.
Overall though I was impressed with how the game dealt with everything. It is only rated M so there’s a lot of sex implied but nothing actually shown. There’s a hilarious amount of creative camera angles in some scenes to avoid showing anything.
They managed to make Vincent, if not a target of your hatred, at least maybe some pity. Because seriously, the man has no balls. More than once I told Vincent (yes sometimes I talk to the TV) to “man up” or “grow a pair”, but I guess if he did that the game would probably only be a half hour long. He is pretty much the most ineffectual, pathetic male character I’ve ever had the pleasure(?) of playing as. Ultimately though through the course of the game that also works in his favor because you get to see him grow as a person.
Well, actually I don’t know if that is entirely accurate every way you could play the game. But the way I did (eventually getting what I think of as the “best” of 8 endings) he definitely grew as a person and that was nice to see. I genuinely liked most of the side characters, particularly Jonny (it helps that he was pretty good looking too, lol) and Erica.
I found Erica’s character to be SUPER interesting because of the reveal about her at the end (if you get the ‘True Katherine’ ending). But the reveal itself is too fun/spoilery so I won’t mention what it is here!
Of course all of these comments so far are story or character based. The gameplay was pretty darn fun too. I enjoyed the puzzles even though a couple of them brought on my video game rage (think road rage, but video games).
I do find it fairly amusing that I was sure I was going to beat it one night, then I was SURE I was going to beat it the next night, but at least I finally finished it yet one more night later! I think I got about 20 hours of playtime out of it so far (just one playthrough) which isn’t bad for $40, particularly if I go back and try to save some of the side characters. (You can control whether some of the side characters live or die depending on whether you talk to them and what you say to them.) There’s also gold trophies to be had!
Semi-bitter moment: Catherine had 8 endings and all of them were more diverse and interesting than the ‘only’ ending Mass Effect 3 had. YEAH I SAID IT
So yeah. I was not at all sure at first that Catherine would be a game I’d enjoy, but I decided to pick it up because regardless of the weird marketing, the general weirdness of the game, and the apparent storyline about cheating on your significant other, I’d heard MANY good things about it. I’m really glad I decided to give it a chance.
And last, an aside: I really enjoyed the questions you had to answer, though at least one of them was confusing and felt like it needed more explanation or maybe a better translation from Japanese. I did sort of lose a bit of hope for humanity though when I saw that the split for answers from the community “have you ever cheated on a significant other” were like 40% yes / 60% no. SERIOUSLYYYY. Maybe they were answering from Vincent’s point of view… But overall the questions were super interesting and I enjoyed being able to see what other first-time Catherine players answered.
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